Palomino Sabre Factory Tour Photos

I recently found myself at the Palomino Sabre (a Forest River company) factory checking on some repair work that was being done to my camper (which is a post for another day). While there, I met with both the warranty manager and plant manager quite a bit during the day. Towards the end of the day, after many of the workers had gone home, the warranty manager took me on a tour of the factory. We started with the building of walls, moved onto preparing the chassis and following along as they assembled the interior of the camper and built the walls up through finishing work. As a computer geek, it was really awesome to watch campers take shape.

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01 - Wall Welding Jigs - All of the welding jigs for current and past Sabre models.

02 – Welding Station -The jigs are laid on the table and the sides are built on top of that.

03 - Wood Backed Wall Studs - Some studs are filled with wood so that screws have some “meat” to bite into.

25 - Dolly - All of the chassis and campers were on wheels – it was weird seeing guys push campers around!

26 - Air Plenum Machine

27 - Floors - I think; If I recall this correctly, this is the raised floors for the next photo.

28 - Elevated Bathroom Area

29 - Misc Chassis Wiring

30 - 36QB Bunk House

31 - Drawers Prebuilt - The drawer guides were built by the cabinet shop already in place. They’ll be mounted better when more goes in.

32 – Stairs Framing - I’m very interested in the stairs as I want to add a central vacuum system.

33 – Under Bathroom Inaccessible Space

34 – Misc Chassis Wiring - this is looking in the side towards the front of the camper.

36 - 36QB Half Bath

37 - 36QB Kitchen

38 - TrailAir Pin Box

39 - Shower Enclosure

40 - Landing Gear Wheels

41 - Pin Box Support - This is apparently necessary to properly support the camper when the walls are put into place.

42 – Behind Front Cap - Many units had the shoe storage box sticking out of this area.

43 - Cabinets Hung

44 – Premade Doors - The doors are made by another company and come complete with hardware installed.

45 - 35QSIK - Hi Tech Labeling

46 - 35QSIK Kitchen Island

47 - 35QSIK

48 - Scaffolding for Running Electrical Wires

49 - Misc Roof

50 - Misc Roof

51 - Misc Roof

52 - Misc Roof

53 - Top Down Wiring - All of the wiring is ran from these spools wire by wire (or a handful at a time).

54 - Top Down Wiring - There were guys above and below working the wiring, getting it roughly pulled to where it needed to be.

55 - Top Down Wiring

56 - Wiring

57 - Wiring - And this, this is why you’ll never see a real wiring schematic.

58 - Wiring

59 - Wiring

60 - Wiring

61 - Wiring

62 - QC Inspection - As much as we bellyache about a lack of QC, there were signs of QC throughout the process.

63 - Applicances Installed In Slide

64 - Wiring Termination

65 - QC Inspection - 1st Round - Green Tape

66 - QC Inspection - 1st Round - Green Tape

67 - Slide Roller - For Lippert Slides, they ride on these rollers.

68 - Slide Roller

69 - Misc Camper

70 - Hand Applying Decals - All decals are applied by hand and by eye based on a drawing of the campers.

71 - Subwoofer Under Stairs - This seems to be a new popular place for installing subwoofers.

72 - Misc Camper

73 - Misc Wiring - This likely failed some QC that it had wiring pulled out to be fixed.

74 - QC Inspection - 2nd Round - Red Tape

Warranty testing

After the manufacturing is done, the warranty department’s job kicks in. One thing that they do is test every piece of equipment sent back by dealers to verify its broken-ness. As explained, it helps keep dealers honest and is supposed to ensure/encourage them to more properly diagnose issues rather than just swapping parts out.

3 COMMENTS

Thanks for the tour. We are thinking about buying a 2013 palomino saber with the idea of living in a full-time next spring. In your opinion with the saber be suitable for full timing? Thank you very much appreciate your time

My family and I have put many nights on this camper- 50 the first year, 50 the next year, and 100 the third year. In fact, we are currently living in ours as we are on an extended 14-month trip.

I've kicked around the answer to your question if these campers are "full-time ready" or not. The major issues that we've had are:a) The one slide out has been prone to issues (2 factory returns for it alone)b) The 2 of leaf springs in the suspension have flattened out before we were completely loaded upc) The tires that came on it originally were terrible and the replacements that I bought didn't have a high enough carrying capacity to support the axles (same as what came on it originally).

Minor stuff comes up here and there, but nothing to really ruin a day. There always seems to be something that needs tweaked or minorly fixed/adjusted. But from talking to other fulltimers- this seems to be the norm.

We're running pretty heavy- right at GVWR and GAWR. But she handles pretty well and has supported us alright.

Ok, I won't lie - setting up a campsite is more than 3 steps but, hey let's look at the major steps. First, you...

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